ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the role of modernity and class in the study of mass violence, especially the Holocaust. After discussing the post-war historiography and theoretical production on “modernity’s evil doings,” it moves on to analyse the work of three Columbus Centre’s participants who dealt with the topic: Norman Cohn, Henry Dicks, and historian Léon Poliakov. The last part of this chapter revisits the historiographical debate on modernity in the aftermath of the Columbus Centre, in the 1980s.
